Sunday, October 25, 2026

A Saucy Old Pirate at Joe's Cafe' - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

A Saucy Old Pirate at Joe’s Cafe

 

A jovial man stumped into Breakfast Joe’s

His jeans and chambray shirt were clean but worn

He bore the look of a man who knew his way

Aboard a drilling rig or a fishing boat

 

He visited every table, including mine

And like a saucy pirate carried away

A bottle from here and a bottle from there

Until upon his own table he had stowed

 

In order serviceable, as Milton might say:

 

Tabasco

Tony Cachere’s

The Original Louisiana Brand Hot Sauce

Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce (“from the recipe of

a Nobleman in the county”)

Crystal Hot Sauce

Frank’s RedHot

A-1

 

He then called out to waitress Tiffany:

“Now tell the cook he can begin my eggs!”

And when she had brought him his breakfast chow

Enough to feed Lafitte, and Governor Claibourne too

 

He measured his sauces with an invisible cup

Then ate all those eggs, yes, he ate ‘em all up

And as he took his second pot of coffee

He seemed satisfied with his voyage’s takings

 

I asked him what that was all about

He smiled and waved his arms wide open, and laughed

 

“I’m a Cajun!”

Nuit de Cristal - poem

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature, and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Nuit de Cristal

 

 

It’s possible to appreciate the beauty of a shard of glass without

knowing what the window looked like before it was smashed…

 

-Matti Friedman, Who by Fire: Leonard Cohen in the Sinai

 

 

Her libraries are closed against book-burners

Museums wrecked out by enemies of art

Music has been silenced by the bullhorns’ roars

Communion is now a looted Hershey bar

 

Poets must hide their verse from the ignorant

Who scream for education even as they burn their schools

Defile synagogues and loot little shops

And steal purses, not books or microscopes

 

Even so

 

Paris, civilization’s brightest light

Will live despite lies, fires, and broken glass

 

 

Qu'est-ce que «Krystallnacht» en français?

Friday, October 23, 2026

Swabbing Out the Head - poem about recruit training

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Swabbing Out the Head

 

When I was a lad swabbing out the head

Windexing the mirrors, cleaning the s******s

Occasionally standing to attention to squeak

“Sir, yes, sir; my first general order is, sir…!

 

When I was a lad in concrete Camp Nimitz

Marching for freedom back behind barbed wire

1903 Springfield, manual of arms

“Yer all cockroaches; drop and gimme ten!”

 

When I was a lad, guarding a clothesline ‘til dawn

I didn’t know that I was a

                                                               Warfighter

Thursday, October 22, 2026

Headless America - doggerel

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Headless America

 

 

In the eye-blurry morning this subhead I read:

 

HEADLESS AMERICA

 

But I blinked and thinked and winked and re-read:

 

HEADLINES AMERICA

 

The first reading was more accurate, someone said

The Latest News on the President’s Snuff Film - doggerel

  

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

The Latest News on the President’s Snuff Film

 

The president’s snuff film has been stopped

Much to the annoyance of the red-capped mob

Who enjoy watching humans being shredded or chopped

          But who need to remember in merry December:

That public executions are ICE’s job

Lurking at the Early Voting Site - poem

 

 

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Lurking at the Early Voting Site

 

 

Years later, some will say this never happened

 

Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic

 

 

A Texas Emergency Management SUV

Parked at the poll at the Baptist Church

There’s no one in it, that White Maria

In government white, it just sort of lurks

 

You’ve been listening to rumors, comrade

No, no, there is no typhus in Moscow

Did Grendel leave it while waiting for night?

It just sort of lurks, in government white

 

This isn’t Spain; this is England, you know

And, citizen, there is no typhus in Moscow

 

 

Free-floating allusions for our illusions:

 

The Gulag Archipelago

Doctor Zhivago

Beowulf

A Man for All Seasons

Soft Footfalls Outside Your Window at Night - poem

  

Lawrence Hall

Mhall46184@aol.com

Dispatches for the Colonial Office

LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love

Home - Hello Poetry

 

Soft Footfalls Outside Your Window at Night

 

Once upon a time I found an arrowhead

At the roots of an oak that no longer stands

And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn –

Man versus nature or man versus man

 

Once upon a time I found a minie’-ball

At the roots of that oak that no longer stands

And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn -

Man versus nature or man versus man

 

Once upon a time I found dentures

At the base of the old water well out front

And wondered what struggle, upon my lawn –

Man versus plug tobacco or plug tobacco versus man

 

Do you hear their soft footfalls at night?

Paws and claws and feet from before linear time

Between the poles and along the latitudes

That no one had yet written or thought

 

Do they stand outside your window and listen

Listen for your breathing, and wish they could talk

 

Could talk with you about this holy earth

A Saucy Old Pirate at Joe's Cafe' - poem

  Lawrence Hall Mhall46184@aol.com Dispatches for the Colonial Office LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and ...